Little Bird is a web- and SMS-based scheduling tool that facilitates the scheduling of IEP and other meetings across parents, educators, and service providers.
- Go to https://littlebird.host.
- Login using the username 'demo.user@rootselementary.com' and the password 'password123'.
- You will see the dashboard, with Jaclyn's full case load of students.
- You can view Jane's profile for an example of an ongoing conversation, or click on any of the demo students to get started.
- On the demo student's profile, click the 'Edit Phone Number' link. Input your cell phone number into the form and click submit. You're now ready to text with Little Bird.
- Click the calendar icon with the plus in it, on the right of the blue bar at the top of the page, next to 'Initialize IEP Contact'. Little Bird will text you the first message parents will see when the scheduling process starts.
- Respond to the texts until you see the 'Awesome! We will be in touch soon with potential times.' message. At this point, Little Bird uses the parent responses to check available times with the other meeting stakeholders.
- Click the paper air plane icon in the middle of the blue bar, next to the 'Initial Contact' text, to have Little Bird send you an example follow up text offering three times that would match the parent and key stakeholders' availability.
- Respond to the text, and that's a scheduled IEP meeting!
- Refresh the student profile to see the feed of communications that the teacher can view.
- Using the input box at the bottom of the page, you can send a text through the teacher dashboard to your phone.
- If you respond and reload the page, you'll see both messages reflected in the conversation feed.
- For business inquiries, contact Jill Tew.
- Caroline O'Donnell
- Courtney Drake
- Blake Gould
- Marlena Baker
Little Bird was born directly out of observing an educator's frustrations firsthand. Jill observed a special education coordinator at Roots spending hours of her time trying unsuccessfully to schedule meetings with families, and asked her to coffee in order to learn more.
We estimate that 40% of IEP meetings happen without a parent present. Increasing parent attendance of these meetings enhances parents' understanding of their child's needs and allow them to have a say in how their children are taught. We believe that parents know their children best, so by empowering them to have a voice in these meetings, we are directly impacting the level and quality of personalization for students.
Additionally, the Harvard Family Research Project led a study that showed a clear relationship between parent involvement in school and student outcomes. Thus, increasing attendance will also impact student achievement.
Lack of quality connection between home and school is a challenge that affects low-income households disproportionately. Tragically, many times students from these communities are the ones most in need of differentiated support. Improving a parent's ability to attend an in-person meeting will greatly improve the relationship between teachers and families, and thus also improve the "quality of care" these students receive.
- Vue.js
- Bootstrap
- Node.js / Express
- PostgreSQL / Knex
- Twillio (texting API)
- All Students view
- Single Student view
- Communication history
- Teacher can input and send texts via interface
- Texts the parent
- Sends follow up texts automatically
- Uses text contents to build a schedule
- Allows for input about availablity from the schedule
- Accepts texts outside of the programmed conversation and shows them to the Special Education Coordinator and the parent.